Study for high tide II, Belle Île

The island of Belle Île, off the coast of Brittany in northwest France has inspired many artists over the years, including expatriate Australian Impressionist John Russell who lived and worked there in the late 19th century, painting its rugged landscapes and rocky coastline in all seasons and weathers.

In 2018, Luke Sciberras travelled to Belle-Île for the filming of the ABC documentary on John Russell, ‘Australia’s lost impressionist’. While there Sciberras made many paintings and drawings of the rugged terrain of Belle-Île en plein air, just as Ruseell had done more than a century before. The documentary was broadcast in conjunction with the Art Gallery of New South Wales 2018 exhibition ‘John Russell: Australia’s French impressionist’.

Sciberras said of Belle-Île: ‘Iconic paintings have been wrestled and wrested in the wild winds there by Claude Monet, Henri Matisse and most formatively for me, John Peter Russell, a painter who set off from Sydney with his mate Tom Roberts in 1883 on a grand adventure that was to last the main part of Russell’s lifetime - and would change the trajectory of Western painting’.